We are defeated (Berry)
March 10th, 2008 | Published in Consumerism, Culture, Quotes, Work
We are defeated at work because our work gives us no pleasure. We are defeated at home because we have no pleasant work there. We turn to the pleasure industries for relief from our defeat, and are again defeated, for the pleasure industries can thrive and grow only upon our dissatisfaction with them.
Where is our comfort but in the free, uninvolved, finally mysterious beauty and grace of this world that we did not make, that has no price? Where is our sanity but there? Where is our pleasure but in working and resting kindly in the presence of this world?
—Wendell Berry, “Economy and Pleasure” in What Are People For? (1990), p. 140.